Maslows Pyramid Fake News and the Future of Journalism

i’m not here today to talk about fake

news

first of all fake news as a term has

grown out of control

and now encompasses everything from the

original russian troll

farms to actual verified facts that some

people don’t want to hear

no matter what definition you use fake

news only works because

people simply don’t trust the media

and without trusted news sources it’s

easy for people to

be fooled by made-up news stories or for

politicians to dismiss

cold hard facts and so i’d rather talk

about something that’s more core to this

problem

which is trust and how do we make

journalism that deserves people’s trust

in 2015 i co-founded city bureau a

journalism lab

based in chicago to answer that question

and to imagine a future of local media

where trust is at the center of

everything we do

i’ve been in this industry about 10

years working as an editor

from places like trade publications and

national ideas magazine

neighborhood news website and a big city

glossy magazine

what i’ve learned is a simple truth that

a lot of people intuitively understand

but feel like they can’t fix which is

that

the vast majority of journalism is made

for and funded by people with money

and because of america’s awful legacy of

racism that also means

journalism’s target audience is more

white and has more political power

than the rest of the country so if you

think about

all the biggest news stories of the day

whether it’s the climate crisis

pandemic economic turmoil or policing

the people who are most directly

affected by those issues

who need news and information the most

are looking for it in the news media

that’s not serving them so it’s not

surprising that

american news media has some of the

lowest rates of trust

of all institutions in the country and

that is the fertile ground

where fake news and disinformation has

taken root

so how do we change that if we’re going

to make

journalism that deserves people’s trust

we have to completely rethink the way

journalism is made some of you

might be familiar with maslow and his

hierarchy of needs

it’s a concept in psychology that says

you need to have your basic needs met

at the bottom of the pyramid

like physiological needs and safety

needs

before you can dedicate your time and

energy to

higher level psychological needs at the

top of the pyramid

like esteem and belonging

and if you’re lucky enough to climb to

the top of this pyramid then you’re

working on something

that maslow called self-actualization

which is the fulfillment

of your full potential

so for instance if i am looking for food

and water

and can’t find it well it’s going to be

really hard for me to be

building any relationships and without

healthy relationships in my life

well it’s going to be even harder for me

to reach my full potential

so much like other concepts in

psychology

this hierarchy is not exactly cut and

dry and there’s still

debate over the details but if you bring

it into the world of journalism

we have this simple tool that helps us

answer an essential question

which is is our work actually making

anybody’s lives better

this hierarchy of information needs

is what we need to move forward together

information is power we know that the

right information

at the right time can be transformative

to somebody

if you need basic information to get

through the day whether it’s finding

healthy food for your

family or a safe place to stay the night

that’s critical and as journalists if

we’re trying to build a solid foundation

of trust

then we should dedicate more of our

resources to making sure

those needs are met first and sometimes

we do

but it’s more of an exception than the

rule think about disaster reporting

and stories about the locations of

hurricane shelters

or how to reunite with a lost family

member

if a disaster is huge and it affects

everybody equally

that’s front page news but if a disaster

affects a smaller group of people

people who are at the margins of society

there’s simply not a lot of news and

information

made for them at a big picture level

you can see this because there are

dozens of websites

and publications that are made for the

stock market

people trying to get rich on that stock

market on the other hand

very few publications available if

you’re looking for

affordable housing or trying to avoid

eviction

this hierarchy of information needs

gives us an ability

to see that we need to completely

reprioritize

our journalism for instance if you think

about

the evening news turn on the tv and you

see these blaring headlines

about four killed in a weekend shooting

it might have some information about

where it happened or the race and the

age of people involved

but ask yourself do those stories

actually fill any of your information

needs

do they make you feel like you

understand why that gun violence

happened

or if you’re a concerned citizen and

want to prevent future shootings

does that help you do that all those

stories do

is give you a sense of fear fear of a

neighborhood

fear of a city fear of an entire race of

people

now imagine if you witnessed the

shooting or you know somebody

who is involved you have really basic

immediate needs

like maybe mental health trying to

navigate that trauma

or the most simple need which is just

understanding where the funeral is so

that you can grieve with your loved ones

those things aren’t going to be the news

stories either which begs the question

if these stories aren’t filling any

public need then why do they get so much

air time

we need to look at this hierarchy of

information needs

it helps us understand how are we making

sure

the information that we give has a

purpose

too many stories nowadays are what i

like to call

wow that’s awful stories you read an

article

you turn on the radio you watch a video

clip and you might feel

generally more informed about this world

and you might have a sense of

accomplishment because of it but then

what

if that story is about injustice you

might feel sad or angry

or maybe even feel powerless it might

make you hate the news

now imagine that you are convicted of a

crime that you didn’t commit

by some estimates this happens to 10 000

americans a year

you’re in prison and you’re trying to

fight your case trying to appeal it and

get a retrial

realizing how hard it is how the system

was built to make it hard to even

file the paperwork that should be your

path to freedom

yeah a journalist might write a story

about that and somebody somewhere will

read it and they’ll think

wow that’s awful but what do you need at

that moment

you need information about the peel

system so that you can navigate that

you need advice on how to stay motivated

when things get hard

you need information that’s shareable

for your friends and family so they can

understand what’s going on

that is a basic information need to you

the need for freedom

so at city bureau when we met a young

man in this exact situation

instead of taking that information and

writing

a story so that someone in a far away

place might be

generally more informed about what’s

going on we ask the people who are

directly affected

how can this be helpful to you and

that’s how we made

after the trial an illustrated guide to

the appeals process

with easy to understand visuals and

articles and then we printed it out and

we distributed it

to prisons for free it might not look

like the journalism that you’re used to

but after all it includes the first

person stories of people who are

impacted

it quotes legal experts and advocates

and it’s entirely fact checked we just

packaged that information

for people who needed it the most

in that same vein when covet 19 hit at

city bureau

we surveyed community groups and asked

them

what can we do to be helpful right now

what we learned was that

with the flood of pandemic stories

coming around every day

it was really hard to cut through the

noise and find access to the critical

resources that they needed

and so we spent weeks compiling over

1300 resources

ways to apply for aid like money legal

help housing and food

and we put it all into one single

searchable database

and translated it into 12 languages

i’ve been all over the journalism

industry and it wasn’t until i got to

city bureau that i had the freedom to

experiment with different types of

journalism besides just

telling a great story luckily since we

started down this road we’ve met amazing

people

scattered across the country doing the

same work

and chipping away at distrust

in detroit at outlayer media they are

using 3-1-1

data and text message surveys to find

out what people are looking for

and then they use their investigative

skills to help people navigate eviction

or foreclosure or to stop utility

shutoffs

and their work has elevated those issues

to the level of creating local policy

change

proving that you don’t have to choose

you can actually

serve the people who are most affected

while also pulling for long-term

solutions and context is critical

in douglas arizona spaceship media has

used this hierarchy

to try to prioritize what information

needs are the

biggest for them they found out that

border crossing rules

change often and that is the biggest

news for a lot of people in that

community

for us here in chicago it might sound

like an abstract information need but

for them

it’s crucial to their everyday lives and

just like maslow’s original hierarchy

when you put this into the real world it

starts to get messy

in newark free press and the center for

cooperative media brought this

activity to a group of community members

and they started asking all these big

picture questions around the edges like

how do we make sure we keep people on

the ground or how do we get rid of the

gatekeepers

how do we make sure contributors are

being paid

they debated should this belong here

maybe this belongs here

or maybe this doesn’t belong here at all

but that messiness is the beauty of it

we should be constantly debating

and revising and challenging our

assumptions around this pyramid

for too long news has been dictated by

journalists who are targeting a single

type of audience

when you bring more people into that

picture you get something that’s a lot

more complex

something that matches the realities

that we live in

news media is in a deep crisis in the

decades since 2008

more than 30 000 journalism jobs have

been lost that’s a quarter of the

industry

besides the lack of public trust we’re

also dealing with predatory hedge fund

owners

a lack of revenue models and

a spike in physical assaults of

journalists and also arrests

business as usual for american news

media is simply not sustainable

this hierarchy of information needs this

shape however you want to draw it forces

us to rethink

how and why we serve our communities

but it’s only a start we still need to

do that hard work of

bringing people together even people who

hate the media to think of a new way

forward

we need to recruit journalists and

newsroom leaders

from diverse perspectives who can lead

that conversation

and we need to stop thinking of our

audiences as passive consumers

and start thinking of them as active

partners

we can equip our communities to build

the future of journalism together

with a strong foundation that’s bottom

up

instead of top down and can fight the

wave

of fake news and disinformation that

threatens our democracy

that is how we build a journalism that

deserves people’s trust

thank you